Thomas Lanagan
I met Hans at the tennis courts
at Ala Moana Park in the mid- '70s. We played a set of tennis,
which started a friendship that
included going to church at First
Presbyterian in Honolulu, where I met his wife Lynn. I worked downtown at American Optical,
& lived on Luulu Street in Manoa
Valley. He introduced me to his mother & brother at her home
where he was raised. I once asked him what he did in the Airforce, & he told me he was on
the US Airforce Ping Pong Team
stationed in England/Europe.
We both laughed. He was a very
jovial, fun to be around guy. When I was in the Navy years later I was in a school in San Diego which had photos of graduates dating back to the '50s
hanging on the Quarter deck walls. Curiously enough, some, a
few classes had Airforce personnel with Navy counterparts. Because it was a
tough course with high attrition
rate there were maybe eight to
ten in one frame that caught my
attention, because Hans was one
of them. Yep, that'll get you on
the "ping pong" team, for sure,
I thought, smiling wryly. It fit. Hans had told me some surf stories- the North Shore, Sunset Beach, &tc. Anyway, over the
years I thought often of his goodwill & kindness to me. He
was a true brother. I always missed him, a truly good, humble man of great stature.
It was an honor & privilege to
have known him. Respectfully,
Tom Lanagan